Joel Klatt uses viewership numbers to show Big Ten, SEC are lightyears ahead

The viewership numbers say the Big Ten and SEC are lightyears ahead of the rest of college football and Joel Klatt took notice.

The Fox Sports analyst broke down why the games matter and are so interesting in the era of expansion. Essentially, the expansion of the Big Ten with USC and UCLA and the SEC with Oklahoma and Texas drew more eyeballs with huge markets.

So what does that mean? Klatt broke it down on his podcast.

“Conferences needed more teams,” Klatt said. “They needed more markets. And that’s because the business model was born out of linear television and more specifically cable television. And cable television was about subscriber fees. And so you just need a bigger, better, more. And you needed those markets to get more subscriber fees in order to drive your value up. It wasn’t necessarily about the quality as it was about the quantity. 

“Well, that’s totally changed now, just in a short decade now. What’s going on is that it’s not about quantity. And it’s all about quality. Because the haves are really separating themselves out as far as the number of eyeballs you have. So as a conference, no one cares anymore how many subscribers you have, they care how many eyeballs you have and those are two different things, very different things. Okay?”

Klatt mentioned a pivot back to strictly eyeballs watching the screen for the conferences. The Big Ten and SEC are far and away more attractive conferences to the viewer at this point.

“It’s not about the bundle anymore. It’s about who can you get to your game and how long can you keep them there. And when you look at it through that lens, you start to see exactly why this disparity in terms of value is starting to approach in college football where we’ve got the haves: Big Ten and the SEC, and the have nots: everybody else.”

Then, the numbers were staggering. 

“Here are the numbers to bear that out,” Klatt said. “I’m going to give you the most watched game featuring conference teams in every conference. Okay, so this is apples to apples. It’s conference matchups, and it’s the biggest one of the year. The Big Ten, it’s obvious as Michigan–Ohio State, it’s the top rated game in all of college football. 17.14 million people That’s enormous. That’s enormous. The SEC, no big surprise, they were next. Tennessee at Georgia. 13.06 million viewers. That’s enormous. That’s a great number. And then you start getting into the other three conferences and it takes a massive dip, massive dip to the tune of 8 million viewers. 

“Okay, so the Big 12, their most watched conference game was TCU at Texas: 5.03 million viewers. The ACC’s most watched game was North Carolina State at Clemson. That was 4.98 million viewers and the Pac-12’s most watched game in conference was USC and UCLA at 4.53 million viewers. It’s not even in the same hemisphere.”